Stacy McCain Closes the Trap

Stacy McCain Closes the Trap

He (Joe Mor­gan) said once you picked up one thing you’d start look­ing for the oth­ers, and you’d see them too. I used to play cards with a guy like that. He’d read your eyes and know what you had. Drive you crazy

Any­one who has hung out with Robert Stacy McCain notes cer­tain traits he has.

He enjoys his beer, he alter­nates between cof­fee and cig­a­rettes in an unend­ing loop, he is never short of an opin­ion, he doesn’t like to be inter­rupted when on “dead­line” and he is the life of the party, and doesn’t take insults well.

He is a con­sum­mate show­man, shame­less self pro­moter, and if you have free pads, pen­cils or items that he might find use­ful within his reach, he will get them.

He is always at the tip of the spear on a story and has absolutely no prob­lem tweak­ing the rules when it comes to get­ting access to get the story, he has tenacity.

But there is some­thing else that, actu­ally two some­things, I’ve seen in him that per­haps oth­ers have not. The first reminds me of a story my mother once told me.

She told me the story of a Sicil­ian in the old coun­try who had a clash with a local Don in the mid 1800. It didn’t end well and he barely made it to Amer­ica. But she wouldn’t give the names for the safety of their descen­dents. I scoffed say­ing: “C’mon Mom it’s over 150 years ago, you think that “fam­ily” is still look­ing for revenge after all these years?”

The look she gave me is the type of look only a full-​blooded Sicil­ian can give and I felt like an idiot ask­ing the ques­tion, of COURSE they would, that’s the whole point. It’s the same prin­ci­ple the Islamist uses to ter­ror­ize gen­er­a­tions how have left the old coun­try to come to Amer­ica and Europe.

Stacy McCain is not a Sicil­ian, but he has the mem­ory of a Sicil­ian. He doesn’t mind you mess­ing with him, but mess­ing with his fam­ily is gen­er­ally a bad idea and while he is in full cov­er­age mode he might not get to you right away, but he WILL get to you.

The sec­ond is his mind, Stacy’s library makes mine look small, only Mike Rogers of Gran­ite Grok (who has an actual Library in his house, it’s incred­i­bly cool btw) has more real life hard cover books. His mind is a steel trap, he will remem­ber some­thing he read in one of those book that he hasn’t touched in years and he will draw the con­nec­tions from them. I remem­ber his great debates with Lit­tle Miss Attila. He would quote vol­umes long past and hold those who wrote them to their words they wrote back when they thought nobody who would oppose them would read them.

Because he goes to so many obscure events peo­ple often assume that he sim­ply made his luck by show­ing up. There is some truth to this but there is some­thing more. What peo­ple don’t real­ize is Stacy is usu­ally think­ing four or five steps ahead of the story to make sure he is where the story is when he needs to be. The story is a chess­board and Stacy makes sure his pieces are where he wants them when it is time to move.

Some­times, if you pay atten­tion, he will tele­graph his moves, for exam­ple in his cur­rent piece con­cern­ing Bill Schmalfeldt he says the fol­low­ing hid­den in plain site in his 2500 plus words are the fol­low­ing facts:

it goes on all the time, and it’s wrong to blame Inter­net crime on the Inter­net. The prob­lem is the crim­i­nals and the bul­ly­ing vicious­ness that emerges from depraved souls who imag­ine they will never suf­fer real-​life con­se­quences for their online evil.

This sounds like a rhetor­i­cal flour­ish but this actu­ally con­tains two impor­tant words Inter­net crime.

1: an act or the com­mis­sion of an act that is for­bid­den or the omis­sion of a duty that is com­manded by a pub­lic law and that makes the offender liable to pun­ish­ment by that law; espe­cially : a gross vio­la­tion of law

Schmalfeldt began attack­ing me in June, after the end of his “Bal­ti­more” tenure at the Exam­iner and then, fol­low­ing his brief tenure as “Bill Matthews,” came after me again in late August while I was cov­er­ing the Repub­li­can National Con­ven­tion in Tampa.

The Key words in this para­graph being “June” and “August”. It has been 3 – 5 months since this has been going on yet as Stacy reveals he didn’t even men­tion this fel­low until Sep­tem­ber 4th where he linked to this post at Aller­gic to Bull. This is a sig­nif­i­cant link because the the story there has the fol­low­ing pas­sage:

So you got that? You defended Occu­pyre­bel­lion by say­ing, “she doesn’t TELL any­one where your wife is.” And then you go and do pre­cisely that: you tell every­one where his wife is and even sug­gest that peo­ple visit Stranahan’s house.

and later on this:

If this lawyer is straight with you, s/​he will tell you that your online activ­i­ties have put you in seri­ous peril and that per­haps you should cool off for a while.

This was not a coin­ci­dence. This notice, a sub­tle notice, that a line, a legal action­able line had been crossed by Mr. Schmalfeldt.

Appar­ently Mr. Schmalfeldt didn’t take the hint and on Nov 4th he gives a less sub­tle sec­ond warn­ing this time using his own words rather than Aaron Walker’s:

Bar­rett Brown is in fed­eral cus­tody, y’know. I blame Neal Rauhauser. And start­ing Nov. 7, I’ll have plenty of leisure to write about mon­strous fools who vainly imag­ine they can dis­tract me for more than a few min­utes from my con­tin­u­ing cov­er­age of this his­toric pres­i­den­tial campaign.

The key words in this post being “Bar­rett Brown is in fed­eral cus­tody” but appar­ently Mr. Schmalfeldt still did not appre­ci­ate the warning.

Now per­haps post elec­tion Mr. Kim­ber­lin, Mr. Rauhauser and Mr. Schmalfeldt assumed that with a friendly jus­tice depart­ment they would be pro­tected but the Obama admin­is­tra­tion has not been shy about throw­ing peo­ple of much more con­se­quence under thebus.

Maybe Bar­rett Brown should have con­sulted Sue Basko before he began mak­ing threats to against an FBI agent and the agent’s fam­ily, and con­spir­ing with “another per­son known to the grand jury” to pub­lish “restricted infor­ma­tion” about them. It’s against the law to “dox” a fed­eral employee, that is, to pub­lish their pri­vate infor­ma­tion — home address, etc. — in order to expose the employee to harass­ment or intim­i­da­tion. Fur­ther­more — and some of the script-​kiddies are going to be shocked by this — “dox­ing” is ille­gal no mat­ter who the tar­get isempah­sis mine

and in case Mr. Schmalfeldt doesn’t believe him, he quotes Sue Basko who’s goal is to keep peo­ple like Mr. Schalfeldt out of jail.

Mis­in­for­ma­tion was spread that dox­ing is legal. I am not sure how or why any­one fell for that mis­in­for­ma­tion. Surely, peo­ple must under­stand instinc­tively, even if they were mis­led about the law, that if they are threat­en­ing some­one or putting them at risk, or tor­ment­ing or harass­ing the other on the inter­net, that this must be illegal.

and in case Mr. Schmalfeldt doesn’t get the hit he being the Chris­t­ian gen­tle­man that he is, gives him one final out:

Within troll world, the peo­ple who engaged in “dox­ing” did so in the belief that their iden­ti­ties would never become known, and so this clearly ille­gal form of harass­ment — pub­lish­ing people’s addresses, work­place phone num­bers, etc., in order to intim­i­date them and expose them to harm — became an accus­tomed behav­ior that seemed to them entirely right and legal. (empha­sis in original)

This is what we would call a last warn­ing, five days before yesterday’s post. It was a warn­ing that you are over your head, you have vio­lated the law and if I come after you it will not end well. It’s the equiv­a­lent of a Sicil­ian putting his arm around your shoul­der say­ing: “If you do this thing, I will be very dis­ap­pointed”

This was the final state­ment that the last line had been crossed and it was now too late, thus yesterday’s post. “But DaT­e­chGuy”, you say, “too late for what? Stacy McCain just wrote a post, big deal.” I’ll tell you what, Stacy McCain has over the last month estab­lished the following:

1.. Mr. Schmalfeldt has been harass­ing him for at least 3 – 6 months

2. That said harass­ment was illegal

3. That oth­ers had warned him it was ille­gal directly

4. That a lib­eral lawyer who would be delighted to keep lib­eral trolls like Mr. Schmalfeldt out of trou­ble has pub­licly stated that these actions are illegal.

And Stacy McCain estab­lished all of these things pub­licly… yet Mr. Schmalfeldt kept doing them anyway.

And the Pièce de résis­tance he leads with a screen­shot by Mr. Schmalfeldt And he doesn’t even point out this tweet:

@rsm­c­cain Are you going to respond, or do I have to ask your wife and kids this very sim­ple question?

I’m sure a judge or jury see­ing the photo of Mr. Schmalfeldt oppo­site a photo of Mrs. The Other McCain will find them­selves totally in sym­pa­thy with Mr. Schmalfeldt even before they see the evi­dence of Dox­ing and Mr. Schmalfeldt’s nearly 700 fol­low­ers on twit­ter will be amazed and sur­prised at how this ends.

I won’t be.

Tan­gling with Stacy is mess­ing with a per­son with the Mind­set of a Sicil­ian com­bined with the game­play of a chess­mas­ter as I sus­pect Mr. Schmalfeldt will discover.

Update: An Insta­lanche on a slow hit week is like find­ing a foun­tain in the Sahara. Thanks Glenn.

He (Joe Morgan) said once you picked up one thing you’d start looking for the others, and you’d see them too. I used to play cards with a guy like that. He’d read your eyes and know what you had. Drive you crazy

Anyone who has hung out with Robert Stacy McCain notes certain traits he has.

He enjoys his beer, he alternates between coffee and cigarettes in an unending loop, he is never short of an opinion, he doesn’t like to be interrupted when on “deadline” and he is the life of the party, and doesn’t take insults well.

He is a consummate showman, shameless self promoter, and if you have free pads, pencils or items that he might find useful within his reach, he will get them.

He is always at the tip of the spear on a story and has absolutely no problem tweaking the rules when it comes to getting access to get the story, he has tenacity.

But there is something else that, actually two somethings, I’ve seen in him that perhaps others have not. The first reminds me of a story my mother once told me.

She told me the story of a Sicilian in the old country who had a clash with a local Don in the mid 1800. It didn’t end well and he barely made it to America. But she wouldn’t give the names for the safety of their descendents. I scoffed saying: “C’mon Mom it’s over 150 years ago, you think that “family” is still looking for revenge after all these years?”

The look she gave me is the type of look only a full-blooded Sicilian can give and I felt like an idiot asking the question, of COURSE they would, that’s the whole point. It’s the same principle the Islamist uses to terrorize generations how have left the old country to come to America and Europe.

Stacy McCain is not a Sicilian, but he has the memory of a Sicilian. He doesn’t mind you messing with him, but messing with his family is generally a bad idea and while he is in full coverage mode he might not get to you right away, but he WILL get to you.

The second is his mind, Stacy’s library makes mine look small, only Mike Rogers of Granite Grok (who has an actual Library in his house, it’s incredibly cool btw) has more real life hard cover books. His mind is a steel trap, he will remember something he read in one of those book that he hasn’t touched in years and he will draw the connections from them. I remember his great debates with Little Miss Attila. He would quote volumes long past and hold those who wrote them to their words they wrote back when they thought nobody who would oppose them would read them.

Because he goes to so many obscure events people often assume that he simply made his luck by showing up. There is some truth to this but there is something more. What people don’t realize is Stacy is usually thinking four or five steps ahead of the story to make sure he is where the story is when he needs to be. The story is a chessboard and Stacy makes sure his pieces are where he wants them when it is time to move.

Sometimes, if you pay attention, he will telegraph his moves, for example in his current piece concerning Bill Schmalfeldt he says the following hidden in plain site in his 2500 plus words are the following facts:

it goes on all the time, and it’s wrong to blame Internet crime on the Internet. The problem is the criminals and the bullying viciousness that emerges from depraved souls who imagine they will never suffer real-life consequences for their online evil.

This sounds like a rhetorical flourish but this actually contains two important words Internet crime.

1: an act or the commission of an act that is forbidden or the omission of a duty that is commanded by a public law and that makes the offender liable to punishment by that law; especially : a gross violation of law

Schmalfeldt began attacking me in June, after the end of his “Baltimore” tenure at the Examiner and then, following his brief tenure as “Bill Matthews,” came after me again in late August while I was covering the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

The Key words in this paragraph being “June” and “August“. It has been 3-5 months since this has been going on yet as Stacy reveals he didn’t even mention this fellow until September 4th where he linked to this post at Allergic to Bull. This is a significant link because the the story there has the following passage:

So you got that? You defended Occupyrebellion by saying, “she doesn’t TELL anyone where your wife is.” And then you go and do precisely that: you tell everyone where his wife is and even suggest that people visit Stranahan’s house.

and later on this:

If this lawyer is straight with you, s/he will tell you that your online activities have put you in serious peril and that perhaps you should cool off for a while.

This was not a coincidence. This notice, a subtle notice, that a line, a legal actionable line had been crossed by Mr. Schmalfeldt.

Apparently Mr. Schmalfeldt didn’t take the hint and on Nov 4th he gives a less subtle second warning this time using his own words rather than Aaron Walker’s:

Barrett Brown is in federal custody, y’know. I blame Neal Rauhauser. And starting Nov. 7, I’ll have plenty of leisure to write about monstrous fools who vainly imagine they can distract me for more than a few minutes from my continuing coverage of this historic presidential campaign.

The key words in this post being “Barrett Brown is in federal custody” but apparently Mr. Schmalfeldt still did not appreciate the warning.

Now perhaps post election Mr. Kimberlin, Mr. Rauhauser and Mr. Schmalfeldt assumed that with a friendly justice department they would be protected but the Obama administration has not been shy about throwing people of much more consequence under thebus.

Maybe Barrett Brown should have consulted Sue Basko before he began making threats to against an FBI agent and the agent’s family, and conspiring with “another person known to the grand jury” to publish “restricted information” about them. It’s against the law to “dox” a federal employee, that is, to publish their private information — home address, etc. — in order to expose the employee to harassment or intimidation. Furthermore — and some of the script-kiddies are going to be shocked by this — “doxing” is illegal no matter who the target isempahsis mine

and in case Mr. Schmalfeldt doesn’t believe him, he quotes Sue Basko who’s goal is to keep people like Mr. Schalfeldt out of jail.

Misinformation was spread that doxing is legal. I am not sure how or why anyone fell for that misinformation. Surely, people must understand instinctively, even if they were misled about the law, that if they are threatening someone or putting them at risk, or tormenting or harassing the other on the internet, that this must be illegal.

and in case Mr. Schmalfeldt doesn’t get the hit he being the Christian gentleman that he is, gives him one final out:

Within troll world, the people who engaged in “doxing” did so in the belief that their identities would never become known, and so this clearly illegal form of harassment — publishing people’s addresses, workplace phone numbers, etc., in order to intimidate them and expose them to harm — became an accustomed behavior that seemed to them entirely right and legal. (emphasis in original)

This is what we would call a last warning, five days before yesterday’s post. It was a warning that you are over your head, you have violated the law and if I come after you it will not end well. It’s the equivalent of a Sicilian putting his arm around your shoulder saying: “If you do this thing, I will be very disappointed”

This was the final statement that the last line had been crossed and it was now too late, thus yesterday’s post. “But DaTechGuy”, you say, “too late for what? Stacy McCain just wrote a post, big deal.” I’ll tell you what, Stacy McCain has over the last month established the following:

1.. Mr. Schmalfeldt has been harassing him for at least 3-6 months

2. That said harassment was illegal

3. That others had warned him it was illegal directly

4. That a liberal lawyer who would be delighted to keep liberal trolls like Mr. Schmalfeldt out of trouble has publicly stated that these actions are illegal.

And Stacy McCain established all of these things publicly… yet Mr. Schmalfeldt kept doing them anyway.

And the Pièce de résistance he leads with a screenshot by Mr. Schmalfeldt And he doesn’t even point out this tweet:

@rsmccain Are you going to respond, or do I have to ask your wife and kids this very simple question?

I’m sure a judge or jury seeing the photo of Mr. Schmalfeldt opposite a photo of Mrs. The Other McCain will find themselves totally in sympathy with Mr. Schmalfeldt even before they see the evidence of Doxing and Mr. Schmalfeldt’s nearly 700 followers on twitter will be amazed and surprised at how this ends.

I won’t be.

Tangling with Stacy is messing with a person with the Mindset of a Sicilian combined with the gameplay of a chessmaster as I suspect Mr. Schmalfeldt will discover.

Update: An Instalanche on a slow hit week is like finding a fountain in the Sahara. Thanks Glenn.

[…] horrendous and baseless accusations against us, they also impersonate us all over the web.Anyway, what they’re doing is illegal. Aggravated harassment is one of the charges whoever has been harassing me will face when the […]

Lumping guys like Bill Schmalfeldt in with mere trolls is like tossing ICBMs in with .22 bullets. There’s simply no comparison.

But I do notice a similarity between Schmalfeldt’s attitude toward his online actions and the attitude of George Costanza toward lying. If you recall, that Seinfeld character famously said, “Remember: it’s not a lie if you believe it.” And so it seems with so many of those who terrorize effective conservative bloggers from the safety of the interwebs: that what they do is not a crime unless they get caught. Well it sounds like Stacy McCain has caught Schmalfeldt, and is about to make him pay – literally – for his cowardly attacks. This could take a year or more, but it should make for glorious reading.

Update: An Instalanche on a slow hit week is like finding a fountain in the Sahara.

This might not be true for everybody (I use a jucky computer found on the side of the road, so I always assume connection problems are on my side), but today I’ve logged into 20 or more separate and distinct websites without a hitch.
Even the eternal, infernal, automatic refresh @ Instapundit (damn you to Hades for it, Glen. I can’t be the first one to complain.) has passed without incident.
Only your site, Mr. Tech, is still 45 minutes after the log on still not resolving whatever BS script you piled on top.

If you streamlined that, thought carefully about the phrase “less is more” in all it’s permutations, maybe, I’m not gauranteeing anything cause what the hell do I know, but just maybe, these slow weeks wouldn’t happen as often.

It’s kind of amazing that these people see not just attacking someone but actively going after their family as being a ‘no problem’ thing. Right up until the hammer falls. After which they’ll scream and whine that their ‘freedom of speech’ is being attacked, etc.

And it’s hard to tell with some if they’re just using that as a defense, or are actually stupid enough to believe it.

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Oh God, you who gave free will to your creation, bless those who use that precious gift to blog.

May we though this gift of freedom of expression enlighten, entertain and inform our readers, and we ask particular blessing for those who bring your word across the net, that they may faithfully execute your command to make disciples of all nations.